Thread: 49 International kb2

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I've added quite a bit to the original post, you may want to go back and review it. It has been several years since I did a frame swap and as I think about it, I remember stuff that should be included in my answer to the Sergeant.

Matter of fact, here's something else. I'll just add it here. There are headers available for the '91-'96 Dakota V8. Hooker makes 'em, part #5803, 1 5/8" primaries, long-tube. These are REAL tuned headers, not shorties. problem is, this is a frame swap and there's no way of knowing how the headers will work with the Intnational firewall and center frame portion, so here's how I might go about it to make sure they would work with the 360 in the International. I'd weld a piece of 2" X 2" square tubing on the bottom of the Dakota clip crossmember and extend it toward the rear of the clip. I'd build a transmission tailshaft mount on it and install a caster wheel on the bottom of the tubing, so that the whole clip rolls on the front wheels/tires from the Dakota and the caster wheel at the rear of the 2 x 2. You'd want to install the caster wheel so that the fore/aft tilt of the clip was the same as factory so that the front suspension geometry (caster) would be unaffected and install the transmission mount so that the motor/transmission has a 3 degree tilt to the rear. I'd mount the motor and trans I was going to eventually use in the swap into the clip and install the headers on the motor. This way, you could roll the clip into place for connecting to the International frame mid-section and be assured that the engine/firewall, transmission/tunnel and header/frame/body clearance would be good to go and that the motor/trans would have the correct 3 degree back tilt to them. This assumes, of course, that your workspace floor is level.

I tried to add this to post 4, but the forum rules for a 10,000 character limit won't let me add it. It is unclear to me how I can continue to post on this subject and theoretically run up 100,000 or more characters in total, but can't complete my thoughts in one post only.